It’s 2022! And Smartphones have never been as confusing as they are right now.
We have the top-notch flagships, then we have the affordable smartphones, foldable phones, gaming phones, and also some mini phones, and it’s so confusing.
So, I have done some analysis and will be listing down the best phone for each of the five different kinds of users and then come up with the best overall smartphone of the year 2022.
Let’s Start!
Sony Xperia I Mark IV – Best Phone Design:
Just like you think about Sony’s previous Xperia phones, It’s a professional-level creativity tool designed for working artists rather than a consumer-grade smartphone. You can say goodbye to fingerprints with its matte finish, dedicated camera shutter button, good-looking display, impressive battery life, and also can access your sim card and memory card tray with just your fingers.
Xperia 1 IV’s cameras are beyond the simplicity you might expect from a flagship smartphone. Its continuous camera zoom is just fantastic. Despite a demanding 4K, 120-Hz screen, the 5,000-mAh cell comfortably lasts a full day plus a bit more on a single charge.
The Sony Xperia I Mark IV comes with three colorways to choose from Black, Ice White, and Purple, though availability will depend on your region.
Samsung Galaxy Flip 4 – Best Compact Phone
Undoubtedly this is the most portable and fun phone I’ve tested this year. The Samsung’s Z Flip 4 and Fold 4 are also one of the best realizations of Samsung’s folding phone aesthetic to date. Opening it to reveal the large 6.7in OLED screen still feels like magic. Its compact pocket size is a welcome relief from massive phones, and its attractive design still very much turns heads.
It feels like a truly premium piece of consumer electronics, which makes it easy to forget that the folding tech at the center of the Flip 4 is still very much bleeding edge. It sports a 6.7-inch Super AMOLED display with a 1080p resolution and an adaptive 1-120Hz refresh rate.
The big new addition to Flex Mode is that it gets a trackpad and a tiny cursor. You can click buttons and open menus with the world’s tiniest cursor, or use two fingers to swipe and move around like exploring street view in Google Maps.
Asus ROG 6 Pro – Best Gaming Phone
Gaming phones are a relatively modern concept, with the first handsets arriving just a few years ago. The Asus ROG 6 Pro is a niche device for a niche group, but it certainly excels within its niche. It uses the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, Qualcomm’s new top-of-the-line 5G chip. At the time of writing, it’s one of only three handsets on sale to use it, but plenty more are on the way.
The ROG Phone 6 Pro barely breaks a sweat most of the time, and it seems like the device has plenty of performance in hand. The Pro model we tested absolutely dominates other Android phones on benchmarks. On Geekbench, the handset scored 1,324 on the single-core test and 4,189 on the multi-core test. The S22 Ultra, for comparison, turned in excellent results that weren’t quite on the same level (1,210 and 3,385, respectively). We tested the Asus in X-Mode, which unlocks the highest levels of performance.
So while it’s niche and expensive, the ROG Phone 6 Pro still manages a nearly flawless victory over the gaming phone competition.
Xiaomi Poco X4 Pro – Best Budget Phone
The Poco X4 pro literally squeezes every last drop of value out of the 200$ that it costs. The Poco X4 Pro has a largely excellent 6.67-inch AMOLED screen. We found the Poco X4 Pro battery life to be good in either mode, so we recommend using 120Hz.
At the heart of the X4 Pro 5G is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 695 5G processor, coupled with either 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage or 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage depending on the option you go for. That performance translates well to gaming, with the Snapdragon 695 able to run AAA mobile games like Call of Duty Mobile with high graphics settings enabled, albeit not always at a buttery-smooth 60fps frame rate, and certainly not at the theoretical 120fps the display can offer.
The Poco X4 Pro 5G is a low-cost, high-impact phone that’s big in every way – from its styling to its pixel count, screen size, and that battery. Not great photography capabilities though, Xiaomi’s Poco X4 Pro 5G can still take excellent photos, and is generally pretty easy to recommend at the right price.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 – Best Foldable Phone
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 is a fine evolution of the best foldable phone. It makes me feel more powerful and productive when I’m using it, with the new taskbar that makes multitasking a breeze and the ability to run apps side by side and drag and drop content between windows.
It’s a phone and tablet in one, with water resistance, powerful split-screen apps, a phone-like outside screen, a fantastic tablet screen, top performance, very good battery life, excellent cameras, and a head-turning design.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 is not for everyone, in fact, it really is targeted at a very niche group. It is expensive, flashy, and on occasion, impractical. But for anyone interested in the latest and most impressive phone innovation, it is hard to do much better than this.
iPhone 14 Pro Max – Best Overall Phone
iOS devices are faster and smoother than most Android phones at comparable price ranges. And with the iPhone 14 Pro Max having a bigger battery, you are getting a much better battery life that would make every other phone Jealous.
Apple poured almost all of its best innovations and upgrades into the Pro models. You also get a whole new set of camera features, a powerful new screen that can be viewed in full sunlight and dim down to almost nothing as part of the new always-on display, and a new notification and multitasking feature called Dynamic Island that is much cooler than its name.
When you’re playing a podcast, a song, or a YouTube video and you swipe up to go to another app, the player automatically docks on the island with a small audio visualization showing that it’s still active.
With a new 48-megapixel primary sensor, an updated low-light processing algorithm called Photonic Engine and new features like Action mode for improved video stabilization, the iPhone 14 Pros’ cameras promise a meaty upgrade.
Although I choose iPhone 14 Pro max as the best overall phone, I would like to add that the Vivo X80 pro is the pinnacle of smartphone photography, and the Samsung S22 Ultra has the brightest crisp display, the best camera systems, and comes with an S-Pen. Oppo Find X5 pro is another choice for android users which is a flagship spec.
